Paper Man

The real people,
Who have a real use,
The genuine folk,
And the creatures of substance.

They salt the earth,
And build whole lives,
And whose own flesh,
Lives and breaths and bakes and dries,

Soft reds and rich browns,
with the clay of their bodies,
They hold each other,
And they know each other

They walk around me,
their full true smiles
Burn me, scorn me
A man made of hollow tin cans,

Paper I am, like a sheet
thin as chalk on road
My skill is in lies,
My love is in the unreal,

A riddle not worth solving,
And a life not worth feeding
A man not worth hearing,
A boy not worth his clothes

Not an animal, for even they,
know to hunt, hide or run.
Even they seek, and fear,
Even they feel hunger and hate pain.

I am but a page,
torn from a lost book,
that no one read,
tossed in the breeze.

What woman loves such a thing?
What friend loves such a thing?
What sun gifts life to such a thing?
And how could such a thing ever love itself?

You command me to live,
You command me to die,
You command me to work, rest.
But I reject that possibility.

For it is not one.